


Even in Death (Obsidian Heart Mix)

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Obsidian Heart Mix [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: backstory fic, harm to a child, ishgard sucks, minor sb spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 12:01:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11714004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: And I don't wanna cry, when you go, (stay a little longer, you know?)Her name is Rielle.(That's all that needs be said, really.)





	Even in Death (Obsidian Heart Mix)

( _You dream, and feel yourself grow lighter..._

_Isn't that strange, when memories are such heavy things?_

_We're nearly to the end now. I don't have much time... But then, I never did._ )

\----

Rumors of Iceheart's heretics, more organized, more resilient, float through the city for over a year before anything much happens.

It's because of that that word first comes into Ishgard proper about the Warrior of Light - the mere human who contends with gods. There's always been vague mention within the rumor mill of the Brume, but it's not until the reclamation of Snowcloak, until Shiva, that rumors really start to fly.

They're interesting stories, but neither you nor Sid care overmuch about them. The two of you exist on a far different plane from the very _idea_ of such a hero.

( _Ha, and look where we are now. Strange times make for strange bedfellows._ )

\----

Iceheart has her revenge. The wards come down. Panic, in the streets, as a dragon marches across the Steps of Faith, only stopped by the Warrior of Light at the last moment - 

You'd think the Calamity come again, from how people react. You and Sid make it a point to stay out of the way, this time; no inciting protests into riots for you. 

The second time - the fabled Warrior does not come. And dragons overtake the Brume.

This time, you fight, because there aren't enough people in the Brume who can defend themselves and the Temple Knights don't care enough for the lowborn. There's a batch of them in the streets with you - High House knights, houseless knights, dragoons dropping from nearby rooftops - who you suppose must not be completely worthless. It's strange as hell, to fight on the same side as people under the Holy See banner.

Only one of them tries to stab Sid in the back, and you make sure to not be between him and a wyvern, for his trouble.

And then, bizarrely, it's over. The dragons retreat - and you do not join in the cheering, because you do not understand why.

They were winning.

\----

In the aftermath, though you don't know it yet, a little girl escapes her family dungeon in the chaos.

\----

The first you know of Rielle is a scream. It's attention grabbing, because the battle with the dragons is two days past, and while the lower streets are often full of the sound of small girls' screams - 

You hear it in the _Pillars_. That, alone, makes it worth investigating.

The girl is thin and pale and dressed nicely enough that she might have belonged here, once. She has her back against a wall, and three Temple Knights closing in on her with swords drawn, and - 

Well, what kind of knight would you be, if you didn't stop to help a little girl in need?

( _A living one, perhaps._ )

\----

She's scared of the blood, which is eminently reasonable of her, but she follows you anyway when you beckon. "Come on," you say. "It's not safe here, kid."

She doesn't answer, but with a deep breath, she reaches out for your blood-splattered, mailed fingers. You hadn't offered, but you let her, anyway.

You think maybe, highborn or no, she might be tough enough to make it.

\----

Sid looks at you like you've grown a second head, when you bring her home and put her up in the back room, the one that's gone unused since the Calamity, the room that used to be your master's.

To be fair, she looks at him with sheer terror and attempts to hide behind you, and no amount of soothing words (or, well, as soothing as you can ever manage) will convince her to let go of your armor. You sigh.

"Look, Sid, there was a batch of Temple Knights ready to _cut her down_ in the streets. What was I supposed to do, leave her? She's just a kid."

"Might've been for a good reason," Sid says, but you both know - the Temple Knights had plenty of _good reasons_ to cut him down, too. And here he is, and here she is, decidedly less covered in scales, and you know that for all his complaining, he wouldn't have been able to turn away from her, either. "She got a name?"

"I hadn't asked," you say. "She hasn't said a word since I picked her up. If I hadn't heard her scream, I'd think she was mute."

Sid crouches down, bringing himself to something resembling her eye level. "Hey," he says, his voice as gentle as he ever manages. "I'm Sidurgu. I'm not going to hurt you."

You twist, trying to see as much of the girl as you can as she peeks at him from behind you. "You can call him Sid, if you like," you say. "He's a chocobo's arse, but he means well."

He'd probably cuff you for that one if it wouldn't scare the girl. You have to take advantage of the opportunity when you see it, otherwise it's going to get away from you.

Something - perhaps your foul Brumeborn mouth, no doubt utterly different from anything she's heard before, if she is highborn like you think she might be - makes her relax enough to giggle. It's a tiny sound, awkward, like she doesn't really know if it's okay.

"Rielle," she says at length, slowly releasing her hold on you. There's still patches of red on her fingers. "My name's Rielle."

\----

Rielle is definitely highborn, from her accent the rare times she speaks, and _pious_ to boot, full of _Fury bless you_ -s and _By Her grace_ -s.

It's slightly uncomfortable, given that you've never been pious a day in your life and Sid not knowing much more of Ishgard's patron than the dirtier oaths that invoke Her name, but Rielle doesn't seem to mind. If anything, she seems surprised, the first time she realizes that you haven't taken her to task for not saying grace over her food, that you don't say it yourself but instead cram bread into your mouth.

Bloody highborn, is all you can say.

Rielle wants to be outside all the time, which isn't exactly safe once you realize that the Temple Knights are _still_ after her, but you try to give her as much as you can anyway. She catches snowflakes in her hands and watches them melt, like she's never seen them before, which ought to be impossible for a child born and raised in Ishgard. It was always cold, but the city hasn't seen a melt since the Calamity - even the few sunny days are weak and cut with clouds.

You've seen children treated in all kinds of ways, before and after taking up a dark knight's sword, but never one like Rielle. She cries at the sight of the stars, when you take her out after dark on a rare clear night, you and Sid both serving as her shadows.Tears of joy, and if there's nothing more disturbing than that - 

It's rare that your anger, your venomous bite, seeks out a specific target, that you find yourself plotting someone's blood and pain with such relish. But whoever hurt this innocent girl - you will see them pay, if it's the last thing you do.

\----

( _Technically, it's somewhat beyond the last thing you do, and you think Sid was rather too quick with her head. Then again, Rielle **was** watching._ )

\----

Sometimes you have to keep her holed up in the little house, and you know she must hate it, but she never complains. You and Sid put on a show of going through life as you always do, which means occasionally one or both of you comes home absolutely beaten to shit.

This time it's Sid, while you're in the middle of fixing up a slightly less filthy dress for Rielle. She's sitting with you on the next of your mattress, a mug of hot tea in her hands, when Sid stumbles in the door. 

You toss the dress away with a careless motion. The primary reason you learned to sew straight lines wasn't for clothes. 

Sid sits down heavily on the mattress, a slice above his brow bleeding towards his eyes and a rent deep in his arm, through the mail, adding its own red to the black. Rielle is staring at him. Figuring you might as well make use of her as extra hands, you bark, "Rielle, start water boiling."

She nods and scurries in the direction of the stove in the corner, your makeshift kitchen, and the bucket of clean snow that you melt down for extra water. You get to work pulling Sid's armor off. It's red and bloody in a lot of places that don't come from him.

"All dead?" you ask him, as you start unbuckling his breastplate. There's sure to be endless bruises underneath all the mail, too, but you won't be able to do anything about them unless you know where they are. Sid winces when you're a little rough with the left side of his ribs.

"Of course," he says, and from the effort it takes from him, those ribs might be broken. "What do you take me for?"

Rielle is watching you work, you're vaguely aware. The water isn't boiling yet, so you gesture her at one of the clean rags hanging from a wall hook. "Grab one of those and put pressure on the cut in his arm," you say to her. "And grab me one to wipe his big dumb face while you're at it."

"I can hold the rag to my own face," he says.

"Shut up, I think you've got broken ribs," you say. The breastplate falls off of him, some blood landing on your sheets. It's why you have dark dyed bedding. You take the front half and set it aside, then start peeling off his bracers and gauntlets below where Rielle is stemming the bleeding. "Okay, arms up, let's get the mail shirt off you and see what we've got here."

He does, though the pain is visible in his face and he drops his arms back down as soon as he can. You quickly teach Rielle how to undo the ties of the leathers underneath, because she may as well learn. Sid is hardly going to die if you take the time now, and you might need her later and not _have_ the time, then.

( _You never think, that someday you'll be gone, and she'll have to do all this for him on her own. You should have, but you never do._ )

When the water boils, you have Rielle throw some bandages in, for the arm, because most of your limited conjury is going to work on Sid's ribs. There's ugly bruises all over him once you get him stripped to the waist so you can work.

Focus. _Listen_. It's not so different from finding the abyss, really. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Find your center, find the aether around you...

The light of your healing flows through your fingers, into his ribs. Rielle watches with wide eyes. Sid takes a shallow breath, winces. You take a deeper one, do it again, and again, until your ability to focus on the magic is exhausted.

A bunch of the bruises are gone, and his ribs are whole, if sore. It'll have to do.

Rielle, still holding a rag in place over the cut, says, "Can you teach me?"

You blink at her, the question taking a moment to figure out, and then you say, "Tomorrow," and show her how to wrap bandages instead.

\----

She takes to it easily. Rielle's hands have more power than yours, even with the cheap, shoddy wand you manage to find for her once it's clear she's serious. Mindful of the lessons of the conjurers in Gridania, you teach her to conjure rocks and sharp winds, too.

Sid makes for a good training dummy. From the way Rielle progresses, you apparently make for at least a halfway decent teacher. It probably helps that she has a patience that you never had at her age, that she takes you seriously and doesn't turn up her nose at breathing exercises.

She trusts you, you realize, after a few days at it, and that - 

That might be the most terrifying thing.

\----

The Forgotten Knight was already a familiar haunt, being one of the few places in the city where Sid doesn't attract all manner of strange looks, but it's practically a second home, now. Your usual table up against the stairs down to the Brume entrance gains a third chair, though Rielle often prefers to stand.

That's where you're headed when the Temple Knights find you. And they've brought the big guns, this time. Rielle shrinks behind you. You thrust the bag of your groceries - old fruit, slightly stale bread, an assortment of chainmail loops to repair Sid's armor with - into her arms.

"Sid's at the Knight," you tell her, voice low and calm. The abyss opens up inside you, flickering red mist over her arms. "Quick, Rielle, get out of here."

She takes the bag, wrapping her arms around it, squeezing the life out of it in her fear. Fear for _you_ , and doesn't _that_ just make you want to shake in your boots in turn? "But what about you?"

What about you, indeed. You reach a hand over your shoulder for your sword, let yourself sink a little deeper.

"Don't let Sid follow me," you say. 

\----

( _And, well, that's the whole bloody story, isn't it? You know what happens from there. One stop at the Tribunal, a sword in the gut, a corpse in the Brume, and **you**._

_There's nothing else, oh Warrior of Light. I've given you everything you could possibly want. Everything that matters. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?_

_...Is that it? You're a bleeding heart. I don't know why I'm surprised. The boy was part of you, part of whatever mash you've made of us._

_Very well. Just the once. Listen to my voice, and slip further into the abyss..._

_Don't think I'll thank you for it._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Had to make some slight edits to one of the previous fics - that's what I get for writing off the cuff and fucking around with my own sequence of events.
> 
> Anyway, one more left! Can you guess what it is?
> 
> (After that, uh. expect AU hell.)


End file.
